


After Party

by 221b_hound



Series: Guitar Man [12]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rock Band, F/M, Gen, Greg Lestrade is Detective Inspector Hot, John Watson is Doctor Sex, John has always liked dust-ups, Music, Sherlock is a terrible patient, post-gig shenanigans, shirtless people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-20
Updated: 2012-06-20
Packaged: 2017-11-08 04:37:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/439223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A bit of a round-up after the one-off rock gig revival of Gladstone's Collar for a case, seen mostly from Greg Lestrade's point of view.</p><p>Edit: I suddenly realised that I'd mixed Bean and Kelly up from their original descriptions in 'Gladestone's Collar'. Fixed now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After Party

The band trailer parked in the cordoned-off area well behind the main stage was crowded with the members of the temporary band and frankly ponged to high heaven, but DI Greg Lestrade found he didn’t mind. _Damn_ that had been fun. Well, except for the heart-stopping moment when that bastard had fired a shot at Sherlock. Might have hit him too, if the daft, lanky git hadn’t at that very moment leaned back in a hyper-dramatic arch to play a flurry of high notes. The shot had zinged right over his shoulder and into the lighting rig. 

Scrubbing a towel through his sweat-damp hair, Greg regarded John Watson with a private grin. He’d never seen the poor bugger so near a heart attack as when Sherlock had straightened up, tossed his violin – his goddamned _Stradivarius_ violin – across the stage and made the good doctor dive for it like a man saving a baby from a burning building.

Greg had to admire the doctor, though. One second having a coronary over a rare and valuable musical instrument flying through the air like a frisbee, the next second throwing himself into the offstage fight like a man possessed. He’d even been able to throw in the necessary command to keep the rest of them playing. It had been a near thing. Greg’s instinct had been to drop the bass, or at least to use it in combat, but the whole point of being undercover was, well, to be _undercover._ Letting it all descend into a pitched coppers-versus-villains battle _right on the main stage_ was definitely likely to set off a panic in the 2000-strong crowd.

Though that might have been overstating it a bit. The crowd seemed to have thoroughly enjoyed watching Sherlock and John beat the stuffing out of the interloper and toss him face first into the bouncers’ no man’s land. Greg knew he shouldn’t feel quite so pleased about the resounding roar of approbation he’d received just for punching the twat in the face. Greg had the distinct impression that, for the old Gladstone’s Collar fans who’d found out about the gig, watching a twenty-years-on John Watson disarm a gunman, gut-punch him and heave him off the front of the stage with a concussion was a welcome return to form.

God, Gladstone’s Collar must have been a hell of a band in its day, if that was the case. Very possibly more punk than the punk bands Greg himself had supported and played with in the too long gone past.

Greg peeled off his jacket and t-shirt and continued to towel himself less-sweaty. Shower soon. No, beer first, then shower. Oh bugger. Report first. Maybe. Shower then report? Beer and report then shower? Sod it. Beer. Shower. Beer. Report. Beer. A feeble shadow of punk sensibility, but as punk as he could make it, these days.

The hiss of breath from the seats at the rear of the trailer drew his attention. Sherlock, stripped of his own sweat-soaked, blood spattered t-shirt, sat there bare-chested, having his split eyebrow seen to by the good Doctor.

“Well, stop moving and it won’t hurt so much,” John was saying with exaggerated patience to his hyperactive patient.

“It _stings_ ,” Sherlock complained.

“Of course it stings. He hit you in the face with a mic stand. You’re lucky it’s not worse. Seriously, Sherlock. Sit still. _Sit_ , or I’ll give up on the butterfly bandaid and bloody well make you get stitches.”

“It doesn’t need stitches.”

“No it doesn’t, but so help me I’ll stitch your mouth shut while I’m at it if you don’t sit still.”

Sherlock tried glaring, but the doctor just glared back, so the taller man sighed, slumped in the chair and sat perfectly still.

Greg still didn’t know how John managed that as often as he did, out-glaring Sherlock.

“There.” John stood back, wiped his hands on a towel, “No, don’t poke at it. God, Sherlock, you’ll make it bleed again.” He sighed, good and exasperated, then took off that striking purple pinstriped jacket. The white shirt under it was plastered to his back with sweat. The front of it was spattered and smeared with blood, though none of it seemed to be his own. John pinched a bit of the fabric and held it away from his body for a second, as though deliberating his next move.

Greg watched as John, with a further sigh, closed his eyes, huffed out a breath and tugged the shirt off over his head. His stance seemed strangely stiff and stilted. _Odd,_ thought Greg, _wouldn’t have thought an army man had issues about stripping in front of colleagues_. But. _Ah_. From this angle, Greg could see the small, puckered scar marring John’s left shoulder. _That’s right. War wound._ John never mentioned it. Greg only knew about it at all because of something Sherlock had said, very briefly, some months ago.

John turned to grab a clean towel to mop over his chest, and that’s when Greg saw the scarring from the exit wound. A large splodge of shiny scar tissue, a shallow dent in the muscle; a brutal, nasty souvenir of the war. _He was facing the man who shot him_ , Greg thought. _Did he shoot back? Is that why he’s still with us? A doctor killing someone to survive. No wonder he doesn’t talk about it._ But Greg knew it could be more, or even less, complicated than that. And he knew better than to ask.

Sufficiently dry, John Watson found a clean t-shirt and tugged it on.

Greg realised that Sherlock was watching him as he watched John. Greg pulled a ‘sorry’ face and Sherlock’s gaze shifted from him and back to John. Now Greg watched the detective snatch up John’s hand in his. “You should see to that.”

John lifted his grazed knuckles and arched an eyebrow at them, as though he’d forgotten that he’d mashed them on a man’s face. More surprisingly, John’s mouth tilted in a smile that was half rueful, half pleased.

“Here,” said Sherlock, who then wilfully grabbed the bottle of antiseptic wash that had just made his own face sting and squirted it liberally all over the back of the doctor’s hand.

John leapt, hissed, cursed like a proper army man and glared at Sherlock.

“Stop moving and it won’t hurt so much, John,” said Sherlock, prim and solicitous.

“Git.”

Greg could tell that Sherlock was trying not to laugh, but he wasn’t trying very hard.

“’Scuse, mate. Is John Watson in there?”

Greg peered at the person – or rather, two people – who had paused at the door to the trailer. They looked harmless enough. Unarmed, at least. Greg squinted over the top of their heads to the security patrol that was supposed to be monitoring who came in and out of the band area.

“Who’s asking?” Greg wanted to know.

“Gladstone’s Collar. The **_real_** Gladstone’s Collar,” said the skinny bloke with the bad skin. His tone was not at all friendly. Greg cocked an eyebrow at him, unimpressed.

“You must be Bean. And you,” Greg nodded at the plump woman by her side, “Kelly. Nice of you to make it along.”

“Nice of you,” grumbled Kelly, “To pinch our fucking jobs. This was _our_ band.”

Greg had a dozen things lined up to say, none of which were voiced because John appeared beside him and gave the pair of them the gimlet eye.

“ _Whose_ band?” asked the doctor, bland as you please.

“Hey, Johnny!” Kelly grinned, suddenly expansive and friendly.

John sighed. “Hey yourself. How’s tricks?”

“Been better.”

“Much better,” agreed Bean. But Bean didn’t have much time for small talk. “So John, what’s this about the band? And not even asking us to come in with you? We had to find out about you from the festival website. My _kid_ told me.”

“You’ve got a kid, eh? Congratulations.”

“Don’t, Johnny. She’s a fuck-up like her dad. What the fuck are you doing reforming the band without us?”

John pursed his lips. He was rubbing at his raw knuckles, and Greg wasn’t sure that the doctor was aware he was even doing it. “It’s just a one-off, guys,” he said, “Helping out the Met with something.”

“Jesus, Johnny, what are _you_ doing with the bloody coppers?” Bean’s tone was scathing.

John darted an uncomfortable sideways look at Greg. Greg was tempted to laugh, so he just arched an eyebrow at him and waited for someone to spill. Not that there was anything _to_ spill. It’s not like Sally Donovan hadn’t already done a background check on the guy, after that very first case with the lady in pink and the poison pills. Not so much as an outstanding traffic violation. Dr John H Watson was a _bone fide_ stand-up citizen. Well. Mostly. There were things Greg knew, courtesy of Sherlock Holmes’s slightly terrifying older brother, that weren’t on any police records.

“Doctor Watson’s been assisting us with a case,” said Greg, smooth as butter, “He agreed to front a band for us here so we could… get behind the scenes a bit.”

Kelly looked both wary and impressed. “Big drug bust, huh?”

“John, good god, is that the sloppy bass player at the door?” Sherlock pushed up behind them, gave a withering glare to the two people outside and returned his attention to John. “I thought you said they probably wouldn’t come. Or if they did, they’d throw things.” Sherlock returned his sharp, laser-eyed gaze to them, “Though I probably should thank you. If you hadn’t been such spectacular screw-ups in the band, I wouldn’t have John as my assistant now, and frankly, he’s indispensable.”

John gave Sherlock a peculiar look which might have been exasperated and might have been a bit pleased. He turned back to his former bandmates.

“So. Yes. No actual band reunion, I’m afraid, so no need to call you.” His unspoken _not that I would have_ hung in the air.

“Yeah,” said Kelly, “Right. Well. Good show, though, man. Loved the fight. Don’t know if you set that up ‘specially. You were always good for a dust up.”

John shifted uncomfortably again, and Greg kept on looking at him with a level gaze, more or less to see what would happen next.

“That was a long time ago, Kel,” said John.

“He still likes a good dust up,” sang out a baritone voice from the back.

“Shut up, Sherlock,” John shouted over his shoulder, “You’re not helping.”

“I wasn’t aware that I was supposed to be _helping_ ,” came the scathing reply.

John sighed. “Sorry guys. We need to… finish up. Reports to write, isn’t that so, Detective Inspector Lestrade?”

“Reports,” agreed Greg.

“We’ll go for a drink sometime, eh Johnny?” suggested Kelly, “Fill us in on the last coupla decades.”

“Went to medical school,” shouted Sherlock from the rear, “Joined the army. Went to Afghanistan. Got shot. Came home. Moved to Baker Street. Blogs about crime. There. Now there’s no need for a drink that, patently, none of you want to have, at least with each other. God, these people are tedious, John, and they were never as good as you to start with. Damn. John. I need you. This blasted bandaid has come off.”

“Well if you’d stop waggling your goddamned eyebrows like bloody samurai swords at people,” growled John, turning away from the door, “You wouldn’t need to… oh, Jesus, Sherlock, I swear. Stitches. Without anaesthetic. _Sit still_.”

Leaving, at the doorway, two cranky people who hadn’t made much of themselves in twenty years, and one Detective Inspector feeling oddly relieved that he hadn’t pursued punk rock as a career.

“Well. If that’s it, then,” he said, after a long pause, during which the two visitors tried to peer past him to find out what the hell had happened to John Watson. What they heard was baritone cursing followed by a little shriek of pain, and then:

“Serves you right.”

“I’m _wounded_ , John.”

“You totally bugger up my bedside manner, you prat. I used to be a nice man.”

“No you weren’t. Punch ups as part of the show, John? What a dreadful teenager you must have been.”

“I was. Hold still.”

“I am. See? Still. As in _statue_.”

“As in _berk_.”

“Is this your bedside manner again?”

“There’s this one, and the one where I forcibly sedate you.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

“You really wouldn’t. There. Stop… using your eyebrows on people.”

A harrumph of disgruntled Sherlock and then: “Do you wish the band really was back together?”

“Oh, god, no. My shoulder’s giving me the gripe and I think I’ve jiggered my lower back for a fortnight.”

“You were good, though, John.”

“ _We_ were good. We were _terrific._ But once is enough.”

A Sherlockian sigh of relief. “It is.”

“Thanks, though. For… you know. Thanks.”

Greg had no idea what Sherlock’s response to that was. He thought he saw a small movement, maybe a brief duck of the head, an unlikely self-deprecating lift of the shoulder, maybe just a quiet hum of acknowledgement.

When Greg turned his attention back to the door, Bean and Kelly had gone. _Just as well._

“Do you want the shower next, sir?”

Greg turned his head to look at Anderson. Being a drummer appeared to suit him, apparently much more so than being a forensics officer. He looked flushed and relaxed and happy in a way he never did on the job. Well, unless he was talking with Sally Donovan. Stealthy, they were not.

“There’s still plenty of hot water,” sang out a chirpy voice, a little giggle behind it that was swallowed down a touch nervously. Greg turned the other way to beam at Molly Hooper. “I mean,” she burbled on in that adorable way she had, “The element just heats up the water as it comes through the pipes, so of course there’s still plenty. It doesn’t run out, it just… keeps… on…” She trailed off as she smiled, transfixed, at the DI.

Greg became acutely aware that he was wearing tight black jeans, a damp hand towel flung artlessly over his shoulder, and a pair of black leather boots. And that Molly Hooper was staring at his shirtless chest.

And that he quite liked that.

“You go ahead, Anderson,” said Greg, looking at Molly, fresh-as-a-daisy Molly, with her rock hair all combed out but still a little wild in the fringe, and her lovely face all unmade except for a faint blush of rouge… oh no, that was actually just a faint blush. Really. Quite. Adorable.

Anderson, apparently oblivious to the exchange between his DI and the morgue attendant, thanked Greg and went, whistling, to fetch a change of clothes from his gym bag.

Greg and Molly just… stared at each other for a bit. Smiling. Then Greg managed to form a coherent thought and said: “You were great up there, Molly. Brilliant. And you kept right on when all the…” he kind of tossed his head towards a vanished stage right, “You held it together really well. I’m really proud of you.”

Molly blushed but also lifted her head, proud of herself as well. “My mum always said, if you don’t know what to do in a crisis, just keep doing what you’re doing and it’ll sort itself out.” Then she paused. “I’m not really sure that’s usually good advice, actually…”

“But just what we needed today,” said Greg warmly, and Molly beamed. And Greg beamed. And it was all very… beaming.

“Room for one more, sir?”

Greg’s brain sputtered for a minute, wondering how such a comment was relevant to his current musings, then realised that Sergeant Donovan was at the door of the trailer.

“Oh. Sally. Hi, sure, come in.” He stepped back, which meant that he brushed against Molly as she’d been making her way to the door, to get out of the stinky trailer, lovely fresh thing that she was, and her arm bumped against his lower back, and he jumped and turned to apologise, so that his hand bumped against her forearm, and it was all apologies and bumbling about, and a lot more bumps, and Greg seriously wondered if he had not just regressed to fourteen years of age, and damn, Molly was pretty when she blushed.

“…good show, sir.”

Oh. Yes. Sally. Talking to him.

“Yeah, I’d say it was a pretty successful outing,” he agreed, putting on his serious work face and wishing Molly wasn’t going outside and… oh, she wasn’t. She just parked herself at the open door and smiled at him. He smiled back.

Seriously. _Fourteen. Years. Old._ Didn’t make him stop smiling, though.

“You did well, Miss Hooper,” Sally was saying to the loveliness in the doorway, making a real effort to be friendly, which Greg thought was nice, “Can’t have been easy. A bit more dangerous than you’re used to, I expect. And that audience! Would have scared me rigid.”

“Oh, you know what they say,” said Molly breezily, “Just try to imagine the audience naked. Though of course, most of the naked people I see are dead and…” Her eyebrows shot up and she pressed fingers to her own mouth, trying to make the words stop, or to push them back in, too late, and she stared at Greg with distress.

Greg just laughed gently and confessed: “I probably shouldn’t say this, but I kept thinking of them all with targets on their foreheads. Just makes it easier if you can’t really see them properly, eh?”

_She’s kind of adorable when she makes morgue jokes and then freaks out about it._

**_Seriously._ ** _**Fourteen.**_

“You really were terrific,” he told her again, ignoring the funny sideways look he was getting from Sergeant Donovan.

Molly laughed, maybe a little too loudly, in relief, so Greg caught her hand in his and gave her fingers a little squeeze. Surprisingly, she didn’t blush. She lifted her chin again, and that nervous flutter fell away. She looked more like she’d done on stage, all that unexpected confidence.

Sally, to his relief, decided to ignore this undignified display of teenaged flirting and turned to nod at the other occupants of the room. Anderson was there, having not quite made it to the shower. He clutched his clean clothes to him and hovered. Sally smiled at him, but he was at the back of the trailer. Not quite polite to shout over the top of everyone else to talk to him first, like she clearly wanted to.

“Nice work out there,” Sally said in Sherlock’s direction instead, her voice only a little strained, “If you ever get tired of playing detective you could play the violin for a living.”

Sherlock made a little sound to indicate what he thought of that idea, but curiously enough, refrained from any more pointed comment.

“And you, Doctor Sex… I mean… Watson… Doctor **_Watson_** … “ and Sally Donovan’s voice died away in a peculiar little noise, like the air being let out of a tyre.

The next tiny sound was very obviously Sherlock Holmes trying, much harder this time, not to laugh. And Greg could see that the attempt was not for Sally’s benefit. Sherlock Holmes was trying very hard not to laugh _at John Watson_ , who was standing straight and wide-eyed like he’d been goosed with a cattle prod. Standing there in his nicely fitting, bum-hugging pinstriped trousers and a T-shirt that clung in surprisingly flattering ways to his shoulders, his hair all spikey and mussed and looking pretty much like a very, very surprised minor rock god.

And then this minor rock god caught Sherlock Holmes biting on his own bottom lip and scowled at him, and the two of them just stared at each other for a second. Two seconds. Three. Four. Fiiiiiiiiiiive.

And collapsed in a laughing heap.

“You were, you know. Doctor Sex. The front row was swooning for you. _Swooning_.” said Sherlock, almost seriously, almost _disapprovingly,_ before John’s endlessly disbelieving expression met his eye again and they both folded up in fresh hilarity. All of this would have set the DI off, except he was already teary-eyed with laughter, because, god, yes, Doctor John Watson was emphatically and surprisingly a rock dynamo and frankly, from his vantage point downstage and to the left, Greg Lestrade knew _exactly_ how much raunch that man could get into his _entire body_ when the music was on him.

Even Anderson was laughing, because, well, everyone else in the band already knew that Tad Anderson had been thinking of John Watson more or less as Doctor Sex for two weeks now, and now Anderson had the words for it, and it _was_ bloody funny.

Sally Donovan, who didn’t know whether to be relieved or annoyed that she’d apparently made a joke but not at her own expense, spoke over the top of the snorting. “I’m impressed, Doctor **Watson**. You really…” But she couldn’t finish, because at her very pointed pronunciation of Watson, fresh snorts of laugher erupted from every corner of the trailer.

With a sigh, Sally slunk away to the trailer door, perhaps planning an escape. There, Molly leaned towards her, smiling in a conspiratorial manner, and whispered, just for Sally to hear: “He was, though, wasn’t he? And Greg. Though he’s not a doctor. He’s more… Detective Inspector Hot. Oh! Don’t tell him I called him that!”

Sally made a choked noise and kind of nodded. She tried not to think of her DI’s fabulous arse _again_.

Doctor Sex decided enough was enough and went to the bar fridge to hand out some bottles of beer. It mostly killed the laughter, at least until Sherlock picked up his violin and managed to somehow play an especially raunchy version of _You Sexy Thing._ On a _Stradivarius_. _How does he even **know** that song?_ John threw a towel at him to make him stop then passed a beer across to the DI.

 _Aaaaah,_ thought Greg. Beer first. Excellent. Absolute bloody brilliant. Beer. Shower. Dinner. With Molly. Then the report.

Speaking of Molly… she had leaned over to him, eyes shining with the general air of post-gig adrenalin-fuelled merriment inhabiting the trailer and said: “You looked good too, Greg. Really… like a proper rock star. I mean, John was very, well, he’s a doctor, and he was, so yes, Doctor Sex is probably a bit, but he’s, and anyway, you were fantastic, Greg, really excellent, and very Detective Inspector _Hot_.”

Then she did that thing again, when she went huge-eyed with embarrassment at where her nervous tongue had taken her, and she was all “I-I-I didn’t mean, oh, um, what I meant…”

Greg leaned in close to her, and she smelled so fresh and lovely, and didn’t seem to at all mind he was still post-show grimy, and he smiled his best, most winning smile and said: “Molly Hooper, would you come out to dinner with me tonight?”

Molly Hooper sort of hiccupped and looked a bit stunned and replied: “I’d love to!”

So that was settled then.

At this stage, Anderson – who still hadn’t made it into the shower – finally pushed passed everyone else, his smile so huge it looked like he’d be wearing happy on his face at least until next Easter. He took Sally by the elbow and went outside, where, heads close together, they talked and laughed: Anderson, all animated and excited, Donovan all warmth and affection.

“Be right back,” Greg said to Molly, bending to give her a little kiss on the cheek, and she giggled at him, which he thought was just fine. He found his own overnight bag, pulled out a change of clothes, grabbed a towel and headed for the shower. With his beer. And a date to plan in the next ten minutes.

The report? The report could go hang itself. Till tomorrow, at any rate.


End file.
